


Blond Hair, Black Lungs

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Fighting, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, descriptions of violence, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 13:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19946782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Steve and Billy find out that sometimes loving can make you worse.





	Blond Hair, Black Lungs

**Author's Note:**

> Quick content warning: I do sling a couple slurs (f-slur and q-slur) a couple times in here, and both Steve and Billy use that language. There is also a domestic altercation, and Billy references that Neil hits him. Exercise caution, this ain't a very happy fic. It's never overly descriptive or explicit since it's Billy mostly kinda pondering their relationship. 
> 
> Billy doesn't try to improve in this fic, it's not a redemption fic for him and it's not a redemption fic for Steve either. I wouldn't say either of them are bad people, just kind of shitty and fucked up together. So yeah, reader discretion advised.

Billy didn’t feel bad about what he did to Harrington. 

He doesn’t know when the fights started, or why. Probably around the same time his mom died. He thinks maybe he started picking fights to impress Neil, show him that he wasn’t a  _ pussy  _ or a  _ faggot  _ or whatever else Neil chose to sling at him that day. Winning fights against people his age was something he could do, and do  _ well.  _

But Neil was never impressed. Neil mostly just didn’t  _ care.  _ It was all the same shit to him. So Billy could’ve stopped, but-- somewhere along the line, in between the start of it all and realizing that Neil would never be impressed with him, he started to enjoy the fights. Relish in them. He was just so  _ angry _ all the time, rage always boiling just below the surface. Putting his all into basketball never worked to get it all out, but the feeling of his fists against someone’s face and the feeling of someone else’s fists against his face was pure elation. He hated getting beat at home, but fights- fights were  _ different.  _ Fights were control, power, pure aggressive adolescent rage. 

Harrington got in the way of that rage that night. He’d lied, he’d been aggressive, he’d been peacocking, and he’d thrown the first punch. Billy was already pissed, so he didn’t hold back when he laid into Harrington. Why would he? 

So no, he didn’t feel bad about what he did to Harrington. 

Wheeler tried to make him feel bad, Max tried to make him feel bad, but he didn’t. Maybe just a little, but only because Steve was so pretty and the bruises kind of weren’t. They’d heal, though, so he didn’t feel too bad about that. 

He did heed Max’s warning to stay away from all of her little friends. It was all the same to him, who his fists landed on. It didn’t need to be the brats, just somebody with enough bruises on their face that he could pretend they were his dad.

(“You fight dirty, Hargrove. You always go for the face.”)

He didn’t regret what he did to Harrington, either, because the stupid bastard forgives him for it. Billy thinks that maybe Harrington should make some friends that haven’t beat the shit out of him. 

Billy wonders when exactly he fell into that category. 

Even once their little  _ thing _ started he didn’t apologize. Their weird, hate-charged sexual thing they had going on. See, he  _ would _ apologize- courtesy and everything- but he started to see how he and Harrington were exactly the same. And why would he apologize to a bastard like himself?

There were key differences between the two, of course. Namely the way that they  _ handled  _ their similarities. Billy ran hot, flaming, charged, and Steve ran cold, stony, miserable. Billy turned all his shit outwards, and Steve turned all his shit inwards. They hated themselves, sure, but Billy blamed it all on everyone but himself and Steve blamed it all on himself. Nobody else had any faults, in Steve’s eyes. Sometimes, he’d admit that something was someone else’s fault, then he’d backtrack--  _ yeah, my parents being absent has made me really clingy and anxious and I have a panic attack when I think someone’s going to leave me… but it’s not their fault, really. I don’t blame them. They have to provide for me somehow, I mean. _

They still got in fights, every so often, because being in love doesn’t change you all the way-- Harrington changed for Nancy, but there are some things, some ways your blood flows, that you just can’t change. Billy still got angry, and Harrington still got miserable, and Billy wanted to feel someone hurting beneath his fists and Harrington wanted to feel someone hurting him. It was some sort of weird, consensual shit-fest they had going on. 

Harrington didn’t fight back, but sometimes he did. Those were the good fights. 

Nancy Wheeler noticed the bruises, and she cornered them in Steve’s house and she yelled at them for hours, and then after she left, they fucked and they fought and Billy thinks he might have broken some of Steve’s plates, just not over his head this time. Steve cried and pulled out his freaky spiked bat and threatened Billy. 

This whole thing they had going on wasn’t healthy. Never would be. They didn’t pretend it was, either, didn’t pretend that they’d last forever or get married. (Or hell, maybe they would, since they fought like a married couple.)

He and Steve collided like everyone expected they might. Like fire and ice. They didn’t make each other feel better, they loved each other but they shouldn’t have, they shouldn’t have ever met. 

Nancy made Steve better and Steve made Nancy better. 

Billy and Steve made each other worse. 

Harrington should’ve cooled down Billy’s fire, but all he did was add that cold, miserable edge to a white-hot knife. Billy should’ve melted Harrington’s ice, but all he did was set the ice on fire. So now Harrington cried while he fought and Billy felt all the more righteous in his self-hatred-- why not be the bastard everyone expects me to be, why not be the bastard that I am? 

Of course it ended in ruin. Wheeler  _ warned  _ them about that. They both listened to her, they both knew she was right. They were too fucked up to let go of the train, the train that they both knew would fly right off the tracks and into the ocean. 

It all culminated in a week-long fight, where every time they saw each other in public they’d sneer and shove past each other, and every time they saw each other in private Billy broke more of Steve’s plates and Steve broke more of Billy’s heart. 

It ended in a screaming match, on a Saturday, where Steve’s threats finally ended up following through and he swung the spiked bat. He didn’t look sorry when the nails dug into Billy’s side and coaxed from him a blood-curdling scream. That was Billy’s fault. 

Then Steve took the bat out of Billy and  _ spit  _ on him, called him a  _ queer  _ and then Billy grabbed Steve’s steak knife and plunged it deep into his stomach and returned the favor with a venomous  _ faggot.  _

Harrington didn’t even have the nerve to look shocked, or betrayed. He smiled like a goddamn loon, like this was the reaction he had been expecting. Like this was the reaction he’d been trying to get from Billy all along. 

Then while Steve was lying on the floor, bleeding out, Billy called Wheeler, and the panic in her voice made him  _ laugh  _ because maybe he’d lost too much blood. 

They lay on the floor together, holding hands, like goddamn Romeo and Juliet, or something, and then the ambulance came and they were ripped apart. 

It didn’t go down in the books as a domestic altercation, even if that was what it was. Neither of them pressed any charges, so it never went to court, but Billy didn’t see Harrington after that. Two weeks later he drove by his house and all he saw was a neat little ‘for sale’ sign picketed into the neat little yard, and no cars in the drive. 

Harrington had skipped town, it seems, leaving for god-knows-where. 

Billy finds it in himself to miss Harrington, once in awhile. 

Maybe being fucked up with someone else makes you feel better. Maybe not having to go to see a shrink every other goddamn week like you’re some headcase makes you feel a little less fucked up. Maybe he and Harrington did make each other better, in some ways. 

Being understood is a powerful drug. 

Billy doesn’t feel bad about what he did to Harrington…

“Shit, Billy?”

...so why does seeing him standing there, a year gone by, hurt so much? 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is either gonna be a standalone or a prologue to a lengthier fic where Steve and Billy meet again and kind of try and... make amends. It all depends on how long I remain interested in this ship and this fandom and how motivated I am to write. I'm making no promises. Thanks for reading if you read it, even though it kinda blows.


End file.
